Welcome to a new week!

This week’s spelling words are:
today, ache, estimate, phrase, trade, parade, became, arcade, education, glacier, geography, region, direction, transportation, Midwest, landform

Social Studies: We will conclude our unit on the regions of the United States:)

Science: We are studying heat energy and this week beginning electricity:)

Daily 5: We are working on writing narratives, studying books that are narratives, and working on many grammar and language skills.

Homework: We will always have math homework, reading homework, and your child should practice spelling on their own.

Field trip: Greenfield Village, October 19th:)

Thank you!
Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

This week:

Picture Day: October 3rd.

Field Trip money due: Please have all field trip money in by Wednesday, October 5th.

Spelling: owner, compose, joke, only, grow, hold, notice, whole, vocal, compromise, energy, heat, air, water

Math test Unit 1: Unit 1 math test will come home. Please sign it and return it so that we can discuss it at conferences.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Dear Parents,

It’s been a great week in room 34. 4th graders are improving in their understanding of procedures, rules, stamina, and many other things.

This week we will be learning:

Spelling words: person, interest, district, trim, adopt, strong, common, timber, grin, blog, experiment, conduction, convection, radiation, solution

Math: We are studying geometrical figures and concepts. Ask your child what parallel means, perpendicular, lines, line segments, rays, equilateral triangle, right angles, etc. We will have a test this week and begin Unit 2.

Science: We are studying properties of heat, light, and sound.

Social STudies: We are studying the United States in spatial terms.

Reading and Writing: We are studying narrative writing. A narrative is a story that has a begininning, middle, end, characters, setting, problem, solution, significant event, theme, and a plot. We will spend the week studying narrative reading and writing. We write every day setting goals for ourselves and working hard to meet those goals through individual conferences or small group conferences with myself.

Classroom Dojo: Classroom dojo is a great way to communicate with parents as well as to monitor behavior.

Rule Review:

Be respectful
Be responsible
Be safe

Consequences:
Warning
Time out and loss of a dojo point.
Note home and a loss of dojo points and recess.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Dear Parents,

It’s been a great start to the year. It was great seeing everyone at Open House.
Below I will give an overview of what the next week will look like.

First, I’d like to thank everyone for all of the supplies you’ve sent in so far!

Homework: We have homework pretty much every night. It is usually a math review that can be done independently. Your child may need help from time to time.
We will have reading homework as well. I have told the kids to read for 20 minutes each night and record the minutes and pages read in their planner. REading homework will occur Monday-Thursday, then Sunday evening. A total grade for that week then would be 5/5.
Planners also need to be signed each night. That way, you are involved in the school day and know what your child needs to complete for that evening.

Class Rules:
Listen
Follow directions
Be safe
Be responsible
Be respectful

Consequences:
Warning
Time out
Note home
Loss of recess
Office

Class Dojo: Please sign up for Class dojo if you have not done so already:) IT is a great way to see how your child is doing with their behavior each day.

Needed Supplies: We are always in need of lysol wipes, extra pencils, and dry erase markers.
At this point your child should have: 4 notebooks, crayons, scissors, glue, and a take home folder.

Spelling: Words this week are:
problem
latitude
machine
system
member
snack
happen
candy
theft
travel
points
lines
line segments
rays
quadrangles

Nwea testing: Our first round of NWEA testing will begin tomorrow. Please get a good night’s sleep and eat a good breakfast.

Thank you,
Gina Parana

Welcome to the 2016-2017 School Year!

Dear Parents,

It is my pleasure to be working with your children this year! I’m so excited to work with many of the same families and welcome our new families! We will have a great year of learning ahead! Below you will find some helpful information regarding homework, snacks, and birthdays.

Homework: We will have reading homework each night as well as math homework. Math homework will consist of any unfinished work from that day and/or a math home link. Reading homework will consist of a reading bag and a flashcard to record reading minutes. Your child should read for approximately 20 minutes each night and record the book they read on the flashcard which will be due each Monday.

Spelling can be practiced on your own. The new words will come home on Monday. Practice should occur during the week and the test will be on Friday.

School Supplies: 4 spiral notebooks, a durable folder that can serve as a homework folder (many students still have the homework folder from last year which can be just fine), glue sticks, Kleenex, sticky notes, ruler, pencil box or supply box for crayons and such, pencil sharpener, washable markers for illustrating, colored pencils, crayons, and dry erase markers, erasers always come in handy too.

Snacks: Please send in a fruit, vegetable, cheese or yogurt for snacks. Also, please send in a water bottle with a pop-top rather than a screw top. This will help to avoid spills.

Parent/Teacher Communication: The best times to reach me by phone are before or after school at 827-6900. My email is paranag@dearbornschools.org. I also communicate through my blog. You can subscribe to this blog by going to blog.dearbornschools.org/paranag/. Type in your email where it says subscription and you will see all of my blogs which I will type once a week!

I am looking forward to a wonderful year!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Dear Parents,

It’s been a great week!

We were very successful with our business sale. I think it really taught the kids quite a bit about being an entrepreneur, goods, services, natural, capital, and human resources. Now, we can apply what we earned toward our bouncy house for our picnic on June 14, 2016. Mrs. Dobry will be calling each family to see what each family can bring/volunteer:)

We will have our last spelling test next week, Wednesday or Thursday.

The words for 3rd are the oo/ew and the words for 2nd are the schwa a like agree, comma, along, idea.

So next week:

Field Day:
Friday, June 10, we will have Field Day from 9:15-12:00. Students will be provided with refillable water bottles that morning. Please make sure that students are dressed in comfortable clothes and are wearing gym shoes.

Class Picnic:
We will be having our class picnic on Tuesday, June 14 from 12:15-3:15 along with Mrs. Dika, Mrs. Polgar, Mrs. Najm, and myself. Mrs. Dobry will be calling parents for donations.

PBIS Celebration:
Pbis Celebration from 2-2:30 to reward students for their positive behavior this month. This month’s celebration will be extended recess and popsicles.

Thursday, June 16, 2016

This will be our last day of school which is a half day. School will be dismissed at 11:45.

Thank you for a great year! I have enjoyed working with you and children!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Parana

Dear Parents,

I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday!

Homework for the Weekend is to finish up the business project that incorporates our unit of economic study. Our sale will be Wednesday, June 1st in the afternoon so everything is due Tuesday, May 31st. This long weekend is a great time to finish it:)
Like I said before this project doesn’t require that you buy anything:) Students’ ideas have been to make bookmarks, colored paper airplanes, origami yodas, etc. Even if you have things you no longer want that belong to the kids, send those in:) We will use the money for a bouncy house for the class picnic in June and I will match what they make and donate the rest to toward water supplies for Flint.

So our Social Studies homework is to work on our projects over the weekend.

Spelling: I thought if you wanted to get a head start on the words for next week this weekend is a great time to do that too.

3rd grade words: The oo pattern: shoe, woo, new, blew, crew, grew, two, to, threw

2nd grade words: ago, away, alike, alone, again, agree, comma, idea, above, along

Thank you for all of your support thus far! Have a great holiday weekend!

May 20,2016

We hope you all can join us this Tuesday, May 21, for our Author’s Celebration:)
Students will be sharing their published pieces and rough drafts from 10:30-11:30 in the cafeteria:)

Spelling this week:
2nd: Review short vowel and long vowel ee and ea. Each, met, meet, tell, rest, wet, seem, well, best teach, feet

3rd: possessives: family’s, doctor’s, turck’s, turtle’s, author’s, kitten’s, sister’s, brother’s, grandmother’s yesterday’s

Have a great week!

First off, I’d like to thank everyone so much for a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week. The cards, flowers, letters, and snacks just brightened up my days. You and your children are very special to me and I appreciate your kindness and support so much.

The weeks are going by quickly now!

More good news: we are officially done with testing for the year as far as NWEA and MSTEP testing goes. Students did a great job. I am so proud of the students for all of their hard work. It sure paid off because I saw good progress in the students’ scores. Great job!
There should be a summary of their results coming home soon.

Late Start: This Wednesday, May 11th.

Field Trip Money to the Hands On Museum was due last week. Thank you!
Chaperones are MRs. Dobry, Carlos Rosario’s Grandpa, Gracie’s mom, Gina Andreone, and I will check my dojo list for the other parents that said they wanted to come. It is $12 for each chaperone as well. Thank you.

This week’s spelling: 3rd grade: splash, spider, speak, sports, splinter, speed, spiral, space, split, splatter.
2nd grade: ear, near, deer, where, gear, peer, live, would very, your, its, around.

Have a great week:)
Happy Mother’s Day!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Welcome to another week!
I am so proud of all the students as they perservere through all of this testing! It is quite a lot to handle but they are approaching it with a good attitude, trying their best, and working hard. I am proud of the kids!
Even the 2nd graders have been patient as they work on their grade level activities while 3rd graders go and proceed through testing.
Thank you to the Lovett Family for sending in goldfish crackers and juice for the 3rd graders to celebrate at the end of the week:)
I will go out and get some treats for the 2nd graders so we can all celebrate together:)

So events this week are:

More MSTEP testing Tuesday through Friday. Yay!

Field trip money due: Monday, May 2nd. So far we have Gina Andreone (Gracie’s mom) and Mrs. Dobry who would like to chaperone to the Ann Arbor Hands on Museum. I will find out if chaperones are free:)
We could use about 4 more volunteers if possible:)

Spelling this week: Contractions: isn’t, didn’t, we’ll, she’s, don’t, you’ve, there’s, haven’t, he’s, won’t.

Daily 5/Writing/Science:

This week we are focusing on the comprehension strategy of “summarizing”. We will investigate fictional text and then practice summarizing them talking about the important events in the story. If students think of it as a mountain: characters and setting begin at the bottom of the mountain. Then, the characters encounter an event that leads them to the very top of the mountain which is the character’s big problem. After that the characters move down the mountain with an event that leads the characters the solution.
Nonfiction reading, we will review context clues and how sometimes the surrounding text can give readers a clue to the meaning of an unknown word and sometimes readers have to use their prior knowledge and connect their knowledge with an inference they can make from the information in the text.
We will use that knowledge to write an informational piece where we introduce the topic, use details to develop ideas and facts, use definitions to define words, and end our informational piece with a conclusion. You can view all of your child’s writing at the end of the year writing celebration:)

Social Studies: Same as last week:)

Math: 3rd graders will be working on their geometry unit while 2nd graders begin fractions.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana